Microsoft Word - FolkS05.doc


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Aleksandr Kondratiev. On the Banks of the Yaryn (Middlebury Studies in Russian Language and Literature 28).  

Trans. Valentina G. Brougher.  New York: Peter Lang, 2004.  226 pp. Bibliography. $66.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-

8204-6746-4.  

 

Valentina Brougher's translation of On the Banks of the Yaryn by Aleksandr Kondrat�ev' (here 

transliterated as Kondratiev) , should be required reading for students of Russian literature, culture and folklore. 

Based on Kondrat�ev's 1930 original, Brougher's insightful translation includes a list of characters, helpful notes 

to the reader, an introduction with detailed information on Kondrat�ev's life and oeuvre, an appendix with 

descriptions of demonic spirits (spirits of water, forest and field) and practitioners of magic (�knowing man,� 

magic healer, sorceress, witch) and a short bibliography.  

The introduction provides the reader with a brief personal and literary biography of the author, a quick 

survey of Russian and Western criticism on his work and extensive information on the background of the novel 

as well as insight into Kondratiev's unique artistic vision behind the novel. Indeed, as Brougher points out, this 

novel truly offers the reader an �encyclopedia of Russian/Ukrainian folk belief.�  She continues, �the work 

portrays all the major unclean spirits of water, marsh, field, and forest that inhabit the folk imagination; various 

magical and religious rituals as well as practices and traditions dating back to pagan times; celebrations 

connected to the agricultural calendar that regulated people's lives; and folk stories and legends that have arisen 

out of the people's need to understand the world around them� (p. xx).  

Aleksandr Alekseevich Kondrat�ev (1876-1967) was relatively unknown, even in his native Russia, 

until 1993 when a volume of his prose entitled Sny (Dreams) was published in St. Petersburg. The volume 

included the novel On the Banks of the Yaryn, first published in 1930 by Mednyi vsadnik, a Russian émigré 

press in Berlin (p. xi). As Brougher mentions, it is not surprising that Kondrat�ev's novel was overlooked by 

Soviet critics as the work did not fit �Stalin's call for fiction to model the achievements of the first five-year 

plan� (p. xii). While Brougher discusses Vladimir Toporov's 1990 seminal study on the novel (published in 

Italy), further information on the circumstances leading to the publication of the novel in Russia in 1993 is 

lacking. A brief mention of the political and literary context under which the novel was published would have 

been helpful for students. Brougher�s statement that On the Banks of the Yaryn is �one of the finest examples of 

the interest in Slavic folklore that profoundly influenced Russian literature in the first decades of the twentieth 

century,� is an assertion may very well be true. A short overview of the more recent reemergence of interest in 

Slavic folklore would, however, offer further understanding of how the novel came to be published in Russia in 

1993. Brougher's introduction offers an insightful analysis of On the Banks of the Yaryn.  

Kondrat�ev's narrative consists of two parallel worlds, the demonic and the real, where lust for 

vengeance and power, and a longing for love (sometimes of a rather nontraditional sort) reign. The novel 

abounds with creatures of the water, forest and fields. Death is the inevitable fate of those who seek vengeance 

(the Leshii), as well as for those upon whom vengeance is sought (Pull-by-the-Leg and Maksim). The struggle 

for power manifests itself on several levels of the narrative. Just as the Vodianoi clearly controls the river by 

exerting power over the ancient idol Perun, the Master holds witches� balls in order to exert his power over his 

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subjects and in the parallel world, Aniska uses witchcraft to ensnare and control Maksim. Kondrat�ev�s sexually 

charged narrative blurs the line between lust and love among demons and mortals. In his world, natural elements 

such as fire and water ultimately prove deadly for demons and mortals alike.  

This engaging translation contains a few misprints (pp. 51, 70, 125, 183 and 190). While the notes to the 

reader are extensive and extremely well researched, identification of the use of poppy seeds (pp. 24-26, 147) and 

the drawing of a circle around oneself (p. 79) to ward off evil and the cutting off, and then backward placement 

of a dead person's head, hands and feet in the grave to disorient him (p. 173) would benefit the reader.  

Brougher's work is a fine example of outstanding translation. Her words are carefully chosen; her 

sentences are thoughtfully constructed. While she praises the original for creating for the reader a �visually rich, 

concrete and palpable reality,� her translation is to be commended for doing the same (p. xix). Clearly an 

experienced translator, Brougher has also co-translated Fertility and Other Stories, an anthology of Vsevolod 

Ivanov's prose. Brougher's own writing is infused with a special Kondrat�evian quality that is most apparent in 

the conclusion to her introduction of the novel, which is both eloquently written and beautifully poetic. 

Brougher's translation of On the Banks of the Yaryn offers a wealth of observations and will prove informative 

to scholars and students alike.  

 

Kristin Peterson-Bidoshi 

Union College